


a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way; something that one may properly claim as due; being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper

by Code16



Series: Just World [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Broken John, Confinement, Enslaved Mages, Gen, Internalized, No-Win Situations, Non-Consensual Bondage, Other, Prostration, Punishment, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self Condemnation, Self-Sacrifice, Strappado, Torture, Victim Blaming, mentions of suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 12:16:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6753457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Code16/pseuds/Code16
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John knows, of course he does, that he's a threat by his nature, has to be controlled, kept down, to keep that threat from reality. That's what it means to be a mage, enslaved and collared like all mages. Especially with the CIA, working in the dark, on the edge of things. Of course they can't afford to be indulgent, to be anything less than unrelenting, what someone else, somewhere else, might consider cruel. </p><p>It's correct, it's necessary.</p><p>That doesn't mean it's <i>easy</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As described, mages in this world are considered dangerous by nature, put in collars that restrain their powers, and enslaved. 
> 
> Please heed the torture tags and the self condemnation/internalized/broken John tags. This is not a nice story, physically or psychologically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _World notes_ : One aspect of controlling mages that the CIA uses is requiring them to make torture devices for their own punishment. This is here referred to as a 'penance'.

The chains rattle together when John shifts. He shouldn’t, should keep still - it only hurts more, movement rousing pain where it had almost grown dull. But it’s been hours, now, heels off the floor and toes barely on it, just enough to take some weight, and his legs feel like they’re barely holding him. He thinks it’s understandable if he stumbles, now and then. **  
**

The chains themselves are behind him, beginning at the cuffs that hold his wrists together and ending at the ceiling, forcing his arms up. The minders were merciful to him today - hadn’t dislocated his shoulders, weren’t letting the chains do it. Knew how much length to give them. He’s not sure what he did to deserve it. Maybe they just don’t want to wait as long for him to put himself back together before they do - whatever it’ll be.

Regardless of what his bones or tendons might be doing, his shoulders, of course, are solid agony by now. With less experience, he might have thought a positive side to that, some idea about distracting him from the rest. It doesn’t, of course. His muscles strain, ache from the position; moving reminds him of other benefits of staying still. He’d lost track of how many times the switch had been laid against his skin, how many times their black flat rubber had followed it. It’s a message, he knows - physical tools, no magic in them. Showing him just how much he could do nothing. That doesn’t actually make it hurt particularly less.

He thinks about messages, then (outside of seeing if begging would get him another few lashes today, there’s not actually much to  _do_  here, and reciting instrument lists in his head only holds for so long). Goes over his own illation, again.

Of course, just because he was dangerous, had to be contained, didn’t mean his Masters were right about everything, nor that they were immune, to excess. Didn’t mean he couldn’t be right, when he looked at that woman in the hotel and knew she didn’t know anything. That spells of truth might not be his specialty but she’d said it three times and he could feel it work and she wasn’t lying. That when he’d set that last ward just slightly wrong, flashed his next spell just this side of too hard, that the neighbors noticed and called it in, that they’d had to run and leave her - she’s safe now, he thinks, and it won’t matter to the mission, shouldn’t, and he’s glad for it even though he shouldn’t be.

Shouldn’t be, shouldn’t be - it’s wrong of him, of course it is, acting on his own like this, keeping it in hiding. To think he should trust his judgement over theirs. Even if they’re wrong - because they can be wrong, humans can be wrong, but that doesn’t make it the same - humans can be dangerous too, but it’s not the same, isn’t bound into their very selves and bodies, there with every inhale. He has no place to think he can do better, self-aggrandizing, treacherous -. It hasn’t stopped him yet, only further proof that he cannot be trusted, that his decisions shouldn’t be. That hasn’t stopped him either. 

So it’s only right, of course, that he be punished, even if the punishment is misaimed, even if they think that it’s for failure and don’t know that it should be for betrayal. So it’s only right that he can try but he can’t please them - he’d made the penance for them when he’d been told, made it well, presented it with every proper form, the disk, the carefully shaped signs. Knew it would leave him screaming on the floor long before the power ran out. 

It did. They waited it through to the end to tell him it hadn’t been enough. To take him from that room to this one, put the bindings on him, warn him, without need, not to fight. To leave him here after, wait for them to return, find out what his punishment would be.

A muscle in his right leg spasms, throwing all his weight to his other leg, to his arms dragged up behind him. He stifles the  _please_  that almost comes out, bites down on it. Tries to shift again, find a position that’ll be - if not bearable, at least possible. (It’s not going to matter in the end - he’s pretty sure whatever list they bring, kicking his legs out won’t be that far down. But he can try, maybe, until then).

It’s getting on toward morning, he thinks. Even with his collar set to almost complete suppression he gets hints of it. That means nothing, necessarily - they’ve come for him in the middle of the night before, and they’ve left him through the night and longer, into evening sometimes, into another night. But he can take it as a marker, at least, if nothing else. 

 _It’s only right._  One marker or more, they’d come for him in the end. Bring him some part, at least, of what he deserves. Tell him how much, exactly, he can put himself together again. Send him back to his handlers, to the next one. Until next time. 

(And someday, some next time, he’ll hide treachery behind failure or defiance again and they’ll know, and they’ll take him to another little room and tear through him, everything of him, until he understands, until it’s enough, until the shaking, pleading body that will have been him can promise them never again and mean it with every fiber of his being. And then they’ll tell him to kneel and shoot him, head through the back of his skull, or they’ll tell him to kneel and twist the sigils of another collar to close in on him, and he will be safe again, as he can ever be.

Only right.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2/19/18: minor content edit that's been needed for a while due to world updates


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _World notes _: As described, enslaved mages wear collars that restrain their powers. ‘Permission’ refers to being allowed, and therefore able, to use them.__

John braces when he hears the door open. It’s behind him, somewhere in the dark of the punishment cell, and he’d thought there’d be a little more time, maybe, until the next round. Not so, then. 

Light spills into the cell, over the inches of water (cold, though of course that’s indifferent to the light), the spiked floor he’s curled up on. His legs are bound so he can’t straighten them, but he’s been allowed off his knees, for now. Maybe that’s why they’re back so soon.

They can’t whip him at a post, now, not without unbinding him. Not with his arms behind him, wrists between his shoulder blades, elbows forced together near the small of his back. They’d compensated for that, as far as he can tell, by taking care of all the rounds of that at the same time first. His shirt is streaked with blood (mostly dry, now) more places than it isn’t, rough where his skin had torn. (He thinks that might be why they had him put the shirt back on, after). It burns more viciously again when he moves.

They can’t whip him at the post, so they whip him over the rack. Hidden for now (they have him put his pants back on, also), the stripes of it make themselves known, from below his waist to above the back of his knees. Barely faded - it can’t have been that long, even if his senses aren’t tracking time that well by this point. John breathes, carefully. This round’s going to be bad.

“Get up.” A booted foot nudges at his hip, grinds down. “Up, now.” The bindings on his legs release. Permission comes at the same time, enough to drag himself out, his power pushing his body where his hands can’t. To get himself where he can collapse on his knees, other side of the door. “I said up.” The minder’s pissed, no patience for John’s legs, seizing up after the constriction. He gets a kick in the stomach, then a hand in his hair, dragging him up. Manages to stand, somehow, tries to look around for where the rack is this time. (There’s no one in the room except the minder, so this round’s going to be so much worse than bad, but it’s not like it’s going to help him to delay it). “What’re you looking at? Move.” The minder shoves him, not into the room but to the side. Towards the door, John realizes when he takes a step. Why-. “Hurry up.” The minder shoves him, harder. And of course it’s not his business. John moves.

The minder doesn’t get more patient once they’re in the hall. John’s still blinking at the light, so much brighter out here than even outside the cell, still trying to get his legs to work consistently. The minder grabs his hair again, almost throws him forward. “Are you fucking asleep? D’you want to stop for refreshment?” He taps the shock stick at his hip, pretty clear what refreshment exactly that would be. And John doesn’t, really, he doesn’t, he’s not sure what’s going on, still, but he’ll do it, try with all he has. Trying a supplicating look at the minder would mean pausing. Impatience and shock sticks are bad combinations, even when he’s dressed. He doesn’t hazard it, stumbles along as best he can.  

They get to a door, at the end. John’s not sure what door - he’d barely spent any time at this outpost before his ability to observe it narrowed down rather abruptly to two rooms only. If the punishment cell counted as a room. Outside the door, two of what must be the outpost’s other mages sit against the wall. Heads down, the minder with them glaring down at them, the kind of mark left by a shock stick’s higher settings standing out against the left one’s cheek. 

_Hell_. If this is some kind of collective punishment-. He’s been in that cell two days now, at least, maybe three. Whatever’s gone wrong, his chances of taking leading blame for it are not particularly existent. Though if this was punishment, he’d think they’d bring the others to him, not him here. 

A few days trying to push away pain enough to sleep haven’t been kind to his situational awareness. The shock stick takes him by surprise, jammed against his shoulder. “Did you think you heard me say stop?” John can’t even hold his hands out placatingly. Puts most of what he has into not falling over. Steps forward again. (The other mages flinch when the shock stick buzzes, but the minder is right there. They don’t look up at him.)

 

Beyond the door turns out to be some kind of meeting room. Chairs around a table no one’s sitting in, three people standing around it, box standing in the middle. His senses have just enough reach to feel it, workings for containment and isolation sharp, full agency-issue strength.  _Oh_.

“You.” One of the agents at the table has caught sight of him. “You’re devices, right?”  _Among other things_. John nods as clearly as he can. “Get over here. Let him talk,” she adds to the minder. The collar releases his voice just as he gets close enough to the table to see inside the box. It is, as far as he can tell, a belt - black, plain, matte buckle. So either they’re about to shove him over the table and laugh at their joke, or there’s something about it they want him looking into.

“Where’s it from?” his voice is rough, from use and disuse both - he’d been somewhat into the screaming stage of things before they’d decided to shut him up. 

“Agent McNally here pulled it off a mark two hours ago. Idiot suicided before we could get much else. Sensors said it’s something.” Given what the next steps of getting much else involve, John’s inclined to question the epithet, though certainly not inclined to do so outloud. Not even before this latest demonstration of why, exactly, improving his behavior should be important to him. 

“Can I talk to your Stationed?” If there wasn’t something going on with that, the principal mage attached to the outpost, John wouldn’t be here - this is their job, exactly the kind of thing they’re here for. But this is the best way to ask, least likely to draw him a reminder that interrogations here went  _one_  way and he’d best keep that in mind.

“Sure, if you do necromancy. Anyone have a shovel? Or intercontinental teleportation, so you can get our replacement here already.” John flinches.  _No_  one did those things, they weren’t  _possible_. (She’s making a joke, clearly, two of the others laughing slightly, she is not about to start accusing him of doing it she isn’t….). John takes a breath, looks at the belt again, the box. 

“I need my hands.” He could make it apologetic, beg them for it, but there’s no point. He’s working now, and he does need his hands, like he’d needed to know the source of the device before. And however it could be put, it’s just as true that he’s been pulled out of punishment because they want his power, and they’re not going to become happier about it no matter what he does. Nor will he become less in need of the consequences.  _Lest he get ideas_. 

The agents exchange looks; the one who’d been talking nods at the minder. These bonds won’t release on command - the minder undoes them by hand, not gently, the ropes and his hands jarring against John’s back. Once he’s free John tries to get his hands where he wants them, grits his teeth and almost gasps. This - isn’t going to work. 

“I - need to be able to use my hands.” He has to stop himself from closing his eyes, this time. Being permitted self-healing after punishment isn’t uncommon - they had work to do, after all.  _Asking_  for self-healing after a punishment is - about synonymous with asking to repeat it, altogether. Asking for self-healing  _during_  a punishment is - unthinkable, except that he doesn’t think they’d be any more pleased if he just stood there without doing anything because his fingers weren’t listening to him.

He’s pretty sure the only reason the minder doesn’t hit him is that he can’t think of how to do it hard enough. One of the other agents looks like he wouldn’t mind taking over.

“I told you we should have left him in the cell.” John has to actively resist not to drop into supplication. He won’t beg for leniency, he isn’t due leniency-.

“Yeah, and Langley told us the soonest we could get someone sent over was tomorrow. You all want to follow up on Mr. Cyanide or not?”

Apparently they really do. He feels permission and doesn’t waste time, runs power through his arms and shoulders, careful to go nowhere, do nothing but what is absolutely needed. The minder’s watching him with an intensity that doesn’t need a voiced threat to go with it. 

He reaches out for the box when he’s done, tries to sink into concentration. Push away pain, enough that he can work. Push away dread, curling out in his chest since they brought him here. What exactly he’s getting when he’s  _done_. (Sent to the post again goes without saying - they’re not missing that opportunity, having gotten it. Which isn’t hardly lenity, not when just the minder’s hands pulling at his shirt took it from ineluctable reminder to a scalpel. But even without his impelled insolence, that wouldn’t have covered - this. With it… (Dropped from reverse hanging, a few times, is the obvious one, consequent, and he wants to think it’s not that bad, that he’s done it, he can take it. But he  _has_  done it and it is, he knows it is. And still with no surety if that would be  _enough_  -)). 

(It takes him four attempts to gather focus. That’s unacceptable - deserved, the way the minder’s glaring at him, hand on the shock stick, even the speaking agent looking like losing patience. More than unacceptable, just the thought of wishing they might  _stop_ , wishing it against another thing he has to push away.)

 

Whatever sensor told them the belt was something, it was more than right. The workings of it stand out at him as soon as he reaches through the box’s barrier, the concealment he can still feel as involution broken open by the agents’ brute force processing.  

He holds it as he delves into them, starting to map out the workings, feeding figures, delineations, into the chip on the containment box. For its simple purpose it’s elaborate work, organized but involved, like trying to follow a maze of interlocked threads all at the same time. He considers if he can put in a good word for the other mages (who must have been called to attempt it first, then, before the resort to the reprobate in the punishment cell). Without the needed power level or acquired knowledge, this would have been impracticable for them, however they tried. Can’t think of a way that won’t end worse for them. (And him, but that’s not more than he’s due,  _thinking_  like this again, now.)

“It’s a tracker,” he says when he emerges, the summary of what the chip now stores. “Extensive one. Location, somatic awareness. There was a connection - to the wearer and the handler, he wouldn’t have needed to keep it on all the time for them to read it. But the links severed when he died.” (John can still feel the ghost of it, like he’d brushed past the man in the street and realized a moment later that he couldn’t recall what he looked like. Of the handler there’s no sense at all. Professional.)  “There’s no way to track it back. It’s not purchased though. Custom - they have a mage, at least one. Trained, not self taught. I read it all in.” (He doesn’t know who ‘they’ are - for all he knows, they have a whole division of mages and everyone’s fully aware and doesn’t need the news. But he wasn’t told, so it’s not for him to ask.)

The third agent, not the speaker and not McNally, pulls the chip’s drive from the box’s outside, feeds the electronic interface into the the tablet he grabs from his bag. Shows it to the others. Lets them all look through the readout version of it before he turns the tablet off, and John’s the center of attention again. 

And now he can supplicate. He drops to his knees, presses his forehead against the backs of his hands on the floor. He shouldn’t, can’t ask anything,  not dispute that what’ll be coming to him -(if only he could know, some part of him makes wishes. He pushes it down. He shouldn’t know, if he’s not told.) That what’ll be coming to him isn’t requisite exactly. But he can show, maybe, that he knows, what he is, what he needs. That he wouldn’t struggle, has no defiance to subdue. Has less, at least. 

The minder kicks him.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re very sorry. Get up. I have other things to do today than deal with you.”

John stands. The minder extends the end of the shock stick to him. “Hold it.” It’s low level right now, like a spark at contact, then buzzing through his body. He takes the tip in his hand. “Get us back to the room.” Now that he’s seen both here and there, that’s something he can do, only the hallway for distance, no need to worry about repository/arsenal limits when he’s not going to be translocating again for -. When he’s not. Permission comes as dread uncurls again, sinks teeth below the end of his breath that he can’t seem to reach the other side of, makes his hand tremble, inches from the minder’s own.

The room disappears.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from several [google](https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=define+right) and [Merriam-Webster](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/right) definitions of "right".
> 
>  
> 
> [My tumblr for these kinds of things](http://findundergrounddragoutofwater.tumblr.com). I love fandom social things, and anyone who feels like they might want to message etc me for any reason is encouraged to totally do so.


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